


no i'm from nowhere near (but i speak the language) and i know the customs here

by serenitysea



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Study, F/M, Love, these feels are nothing we were ever trained for
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-08
Updated: 2015-08-08
Packaged: 2018-04-13 13:47:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4524330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/serenitysea/pseuds/serenitysea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>the one where <s>daisy</s> skye learned to burn through her grief only by working through it. (…and maybe she finds someone who knows a thing or two about that along the the way.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	no i'm from nowhere near (but i speak the language) and i know the customs here

**Author's Note:**

> WELP. this isn't at all what i sat down to write an hour ago BUT IT HAPPENED AND HERE WE ARE.

_the old men call me by my mother’s name_

_she looked just the same, they say_

~skeleton key, **dessa**

 

* * *

 

they call her by a different name.

she wears her uniform (sleek, unforgiving, _tough_ ) like armor.

she smiles when prompted, has more than adequate responses for even the most banal of questions and even has been known to prank her friends, on the rarest of occasions.

and yet, to those who knew her before the change –

– it’s as if the light in her has been somehow snuffed out.

*

there are nights – drenched hot with sweat and sticky air – cooled only by dripping glasses of water, or the temporary relief of a cold shower.

nights where she forgets to _remember to forget_.

where she dreams of a stubbled jaw beneath her hands and the kind of warm brown eyes that make her burn with a different kind of heat.

she wakes with haunted eyes and the kind of shadows beneath that no one dares to comment upon.

(she’s not that girl anymore.)

*

 _i’m worried about you_ , coulson says.

 _but why_? _am i not getting results? somehow doing my job incorrectly? have i been even a_ shade _insubordinate?_ her voice does not even hold an ounce of belligerence.

 _of course not._ his eyes are kind and somehow understanding. _and that’s why i’m worried_. 

*

she spends a lot of her time in the air. she likes quinjets and the freedom they represent. she likes the soaring sensation of flight beneath her – in a way the ground splitting open and presenting its secrets could never match.

she doesn’t want to know what it says about her that she can’t escape the sky ~~e~~.

*

she takes assignments and dutifully completes them. she gets into a reasonable amount of trouble – and gets out of it with minor difficulty.

her debriefs are concise, always appropriate, detailed when necessary – and spare when not.

her team functions like a well-oiled machine and she often sends them out in her place. they too, achieve the kind of results that speak to good leadership and training.

she has proven to be an excellent mentor to the newest inhumans on their roster and they approach her with all sorts of questions. she answers them all; smiling where laughter would be more appropriate, frowning with disappointment where frustrated shouting would take place.

she’s an enigma, and she wears her mystery just as comfortably as her ~~armor~~ uniform. 

*

may doesn’t try to talk to her when they go through their morning routine.

a decade of tai chi has proven to be the great equaliser between them (among other things).

she holds her stance with ruthless precision, times her breathing until it matches with her former mentor, and radiates the kind of peace that fooled even the most seasoned of psych evals.

may doesn’t try to talk to her.

but that doesn’t preclude her eyes from pinning her to the spot and demanding answers.

she exhales in measured tones and half-bows to indicate her respect.

and when she leaves the gym and ignores may’s firm call after her, she doesn’t feel guilty.

(after all. there’s no point talking about something that isn’t ever going to get any better.)

*

the beauty of being so good at what you do – and she has always been good with people – is that you can set them up and give them objectives and step away once said objectives have been met.

that means she leads from a distance, now.

they still take her directives, still ask for her assistance during the transition or the odd technical snafu. she helps them, because there simply isn’t another option. she helps them because it’s all she knows how to do.

and she steps away, steps back from it all at the end of the day.

takes her orders from coulson, directly.

she operates like a specialist. 

(she keeps everything in check.)

*

jemma (who had been through more than most people endure in their _lifetime_ ) had tried to approach, not long after her return.

 _is everything alright_? despite the skin stretched thinly across jemma’s cheekbones and the way she peered around corners and half-open doors like a spooked animal, she still looked after the team as the resident health authority.

 _it’s fine_ , she smiled gently, putting an arm around the other woman and guiding her down the hall. _let’s see what fitz has gotten into today_.

putting jemma simmons in leopold fitz’s orbit had never failed to disrupt the biochemist’s focus before – and this, of course – was no exception.

she stepped back to watch the people she loved be _in love_ and knew she’d made the right choice.

(which is why it doesn’t hurt when she walks away from them. she doesn’t spend a lot of time with people.)

*

there’s an extraction that goes sideways.

she wouldn’t ordinarily divert to assist the team but something about this particular mission strikes her _gut_ in a way that nothing else has for many years and, honestly? it’s on her way back home.

so she jots down coordinates from the director and makes the necessary circuitous route to both cover her tracks and gain an insider’s view of the terrain. it isn’t that difficult an extraction – at least, not for someone of her caliber.

(she’s been trained to get the job done.)

*

in hindsight, she should have known.

she should have _known_ why her colleagues had been tripped up.

for there’s only ever been one man with the power to disrupt her universe and everything she holds dear.

*

“skye.”

the name she’s forbidden _everyone_ she loves to call her rolls off his tongue like the prayer of a man receiving deliverance.

she doesn’t say: _that’s not my name._

she doesn’t say: _you have no right to call me that._

she doesn’t say: _i’m sorry, have we met? i go by daisy ~~now~~. _

and he stands there with dark, glittering eyes and the kind of control that she’s spent most of her life trying to attain. he doesn’t move, doesn’t offer any words beyond her ~~former~~ name, doesn’t try to pacify her in any way.

for god’s sake, his hands aren’t even clenched or shaking with nerves (which is more than she can say, at the moment) as he calmly waits out her response.

*

specialists are all cut from the same cloth.

and they?

well. they’ve been cut from that cloth long before _mary sue poots_ or _hydra_ were ever a thing.

they’re meant to be, after all.

*

“i should hate you,” she says, picking her way carefully though the debris from the firefight to where he stands.

there is pitiless sympathy and the kind of understanding that should _burn_ (but somehow it doesn’t) in his eyes. “hate me tomorrow,” ward mildly suggests. “why not take tonight off?”

“you’re bad for me.” she’s close now, almost close enough to see the fine lines etched in his face and the freckles in his eyes.

“pretty sure that’s my line.” a smile curves his lips, transforming the years back to another lifetime in a matter of seconds. “you’re not exactly good for me, either.”

“well.” she wants to smile but it feels like ages since she allowed her emotions to get the best of her. “since we’re probably going to die anyway… what the hell.”

ward is openly grinning when they kiss and his hands find purchase on her waist with the kind of familiarity that shouldn’t be possible after so many years apart and she’s gasping for breath because he _always_ does this, always makes her feel off balance like she’s trying to figure out how to breathe and walk and talk all over again and –

he’s _laughing_.

she pulls back and almost slaps him but he’s _better_ (and bigger and faster and stronger and _older_ ) than her, so it does nothing more than render her immobile in his hands.

“it’s the same for me,” ward gently explains, tugging her hands around his neck. “off balance. since the day we met.”

“let me know when you figure out how to deal with it,” she sourly responds, wanting to pull away, but the feeling of leaning against him is like a drug she can’t quit. somehow all the things that have gone wrong and everything she has bottled up for the past decade has just burst open at their feet and he hasn’t run away screaming.

(she doesn’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.)

“you get used to it,” ward says, fondly.

*

later that night when she’s sprawled across his bed with a leg anchored across his hip and the kind of heavy-limbed contentment that sinks in like warm honey:

she elbows him sharply in the ribs, going loose when he startles and rolls her beneath him in a move more reflexive than defensive. she watches as the recognition filters into his eyes.

“skye.”

that’s it. just her _name_.

somehow he’s always known who she was. (even when she didn’t.)

“yes.” skye lifts up on her elbow, kissing him deeply. “ _always_.”

*

**Author's Note:**

> \+ [tumblr](http://b-isforbombshell.tumblr.com).  
> \+ probably you caught this, but most of what skye's going through in ( ) throughout the fic is a direct call out to ward's speech to her in 1.19, when he talks about what it means to be a specialist: " _specialists don't spend a time with a lot of people. the ones we do, we're all cut from the same cloth. [...] trained to get the job done, keep emotions in check._ "


End file.
